


Maneki

by kinoface



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Restaurant, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Hunters, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-02
Updated: 2013-07-02
Packaged: 2017-12-17 12:13:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/867417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinoface/pseuds/kinoface
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jun and Mao are investigating a case with the occasional input of a charismatic waiter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maneki

**Author's Note:**

  * For [astrangerenters](https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrangerenters/gifts).



> Written for astrangerenters for Nino Exchange 2013; originally posted [here](http://ninoexchange.livejournal.com/32367.html). Thank you to astrangerenters for the fun prompts, phrenk for the excellent beta, and nino_mod for being such a BAMF. ♥~!

"Hey, what about that place over there? It's got that cute little cat in the window!"

"Mao-chan, they _all_ have that cat in the window."

Mao tilts her head and looks thoughtfully at the ceramic figure in question, its left paw raised to beckon wanderers into its fine establishment. "Yeah," she concedes, "but there's something special about this one."

Jun is too hungry and too tired of driving to argue, so he pulls in to the parking lot and steps out of the car to stretch his stiff legs.

"Ah, look," Mao says, pointing to the chalkboard sign set up in front of the restaurant. "We're just in time for the lunch special! I knew this place would be good."

The Kazu Cafe is a quaint, American-style diner that advertises "The Most Authentic Burgers In Town!!", decorated on the inside with posters and memorabilia of old Hollywood films. The sleepy-faced host, whose nametag reads _Ohno_ , leads them to a cozy booth in the section dedicated to Clint Eastwood and other famous movie cowboys. "Your server will be with you shortly," he says around a yawn, already turning back towards the entrance. They sit across from each other in the booth and try to get comfortable after so long in the car.

Their waiter appears right as Jun is checking his hair in the reflection of the metal napkin dispenser. "Good afternoon," the waiter says, bowing his head politely. He's small, probably not much taller than Mao, with a killer smile and a little beauty mark on his chin. He looks at each of them in turn, pen poised and ready. "What can I get for you today?"

"I'll have the lunch special," Mao says. "And a Coke!"

He jots down the order without looking at his notepad. "Excellent choice."

"Just a garden salad for me," Jun says. "With vinaigrette dressing on the side, please. And water to drink."

When the waiter leaves, Mao kicks Jun's feet under the table and says, "Don't pretend you're not going to eat half my burger."

Jun sniffs and reaches for his shoulder bag. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

They silently unpack their bags, spreading everything over the tabletop. By the time the waiter returns with their drinks, their table is covered in notebooks, newspaper clippings, and scraps of paper bearing messy handwriting.

The waiter laughs as he sets their drinks down in the small space Jun has cleared for him. "Are you guys reporters or something?"

"Good guess," Mao says, lying effortlessly. "We're actually here about a recent series of strange murders."

The waiter whistles, impressed. "Strange murders, huh? Sounds awful. I haven't heard anything about it."

"You haven't?" Jun asks, arching an eyebrow over his reading glasses. "I thought news like that would spread pretty quickly in a small town like this."

"I try not to follow the news too closely," the waiter says. "I don't have the stomach for it." He winks before turning to leave.

Right as he turns, however, another waiter stumbles into his path and tips a tray of drinks dangerously close to Mao and Jun's table. The two of them are already spreading their arms out to protect all the information they've worked so hard to gather, but their waiter deftly manages to swoop the tray right out of his coworker's hands, steadying the drinks before any of them have a chance to fall over.

The clumsy waiter bows deeply and apologizes before snatching his tray back and scurrying -- carefully this time -- to his own table.

"Sorry about that," their waiter sighs. "It's his first day."

Mao slumps back against the booth, heart still thumping but calming quickly. "Nice reflexes," she says.

The waiter smiles sheepishly and waves off the compliment. "Nah, just lucky."

Then he's off to the next table, this time without incident. Mao watches him as he moves around the room, taking orders without ever missing a beat, charming every customer he speaks to. He even performs a sneaky sleight-of-hand trick to pull a salt packet from behind a little girl's ear and earns a round of applause for his efforts.

When Mao looks back at Jun, she finds him watching the waiter as well. She leans over to poke his forehead, looking at him crossly when he splutters and turns back to her. "Now's not the time to be thinking with your penis," she admonishes. "We're here on a case, remember?"

He scoffs, affronted. "You were looking too! Besides, you're one to talk -- I could barely pull you away from that warlock back in Osaka!"

She just gives a little chuff of laughter, utterly unashamed. Jun rolls his eyes and slides a notebook closer, careful not to spill either of their drinks. " _Anyway,_ " he says pointedly. "Let's go over what we have again."

The case they've driven all the way to this small, off-the-map town for is surprisingly gruesome even for them: seven victims total, spread across three separate households in the same close-knit neighborhood, all of them appearing to have been mauled and devoured by some ferocious beast. The local authorities have been unable to identify the animal, but they've alerted the other residents to watch out for packs of wild dogs.

"But that's ridiculous, of course," Jun says, peeking into a folder at the autopsy photos Sho managed to snag for them by hacking into the sheriff's email. "No dog could have done this, wild or not."

"Maybe something that _used to_ be a dog," Mao says. "An inu-gami, maybe? Or some other kind of angry spirit?"

"Could be. Why these people, though?" Jun reaches for another folder, pulling out a few pages of handwritten notes. "The most recent victims were a married couple: a schoolteacher and a pharmacist. They had some debt from gambling, but it doesn't look like enough to summon a vengeful spirit over." He flips to the next page, scowling at the unfortunate details printed there. "Before that was a single father with three teenagers. Lots of part-time jobs but no debt, no gambling..." He sighs and moves on to the final page. "They lived next door to the first victim. It says here that another neighbor called him a 'mean old drunk' -- said he never had any visitors, just Kirara-chan." He furrows his eyebrows. "Kirara-chan?"

"Who's that?" Mao asks, looking up from a notebook.

Jun skims the rest of the page. "Looks like... a pet? Doesn't say what kind, though, or what happened to it. I wonder if it got eaten, too." He puts the pages back into the folder and takes off his reading glasses. "That's it. The only connection any of the victims have is that they lived in the same neighborhood."

"Which means there's something we're not seeing," Mao says, " _or_ that whatever we're dealing with is just choosing victims at random and we'll need to be really lucky to find it before it attacks someone else."

Jun leans back with a groan. "Great."

Their waiter returns soon after that with their food. They put everything away and eat mostly in silence, except for Mao fussing when Jun tries to sneak a bite or two or five of her burger when he thinks she's distracted. When the check arrives, they pay in cash and thank their charismatic waiter for his excellent service.

"What did you say your name was?" Mao asks as she scoots out of the booth.

He points to his nametag with a grin. It reads _Ninomiya_ , but he says, "Just Nino is fine."

They thank him again and wave to Ohno, the sleepy-faced host, on their way out, and as the bell above the door jingles merrily, Nino calls after them, "Good luck!"

.

The next time Mao and Jun arrive at the Kazu Cafe, they're wearing their most professional-looking suits. Ohno seats them at the same booth as before, not seeming to notice anything different about them, but when Nino shows up to take their order, he appraises them with raised eyebrows.

"Very fancy," he says. "I assume your report is coming along well?"

"It's going great," Mao says. "We're actually here to meet a witness."

"That's excellent news! Should I wait until they arrive to take your order?"

"We'll order now," Jun says, in a tone which Mao recognizes to mean _I didn't have time for breakfast this morning._

Just like their seats and their server, their orders are the same as before. "You're not getting any of my burger this time," Mao says; Jun ignores her.

When Nino returns a few minutes later with Mao's Coke and Jun's water, Mao catches his sleeve before he can dart away to the next table. "Hey, Nino, do you have a minute?"

"Sure!"

"I was just wondering about that lucky cat in the window," she says. "It caught my attention before and I couldn't figure out why, and then today I realized that it has a yellow collar instead of red."

"Ah, that!" He turns to look towards the front window with a fond smile. "That's Kazu. It's been in my family for generations. My grandmother used to say that one of our ancestors made it after a strange cat wearing a yellow collar with a bell appeared to beckon him closer one night, saving him from getting struck by lightning. She claimed our ancestor was the first to make such a thing, and as everyone else started making their own, somehow the yellow collar changed to red." When he turns back to them, his lips are quirked into an oddly smug smile. "But then again, she also swore that same beckoning cat then turned into a beautiful woman and married that ancestor, so who knows how much of it is true."

Mao says, "What a great story!"

Jun says, "Can you please put our order in quickly?"

Mao lunges across the table to poke Jun's ribs for being rude, but Nino seems more amused than offended. He rushes off to get the food started, and when he finally brings it to their table ten minutes later, he is accompanied by the man who agreed to speak to them.

"You didn't tell me you were interviewing this idiot," Nino says, his tone harsh despite the smile on his face.

The man laughs and cuffs Nino gently over the head. "Hey, don't I get a free meal?"

"For the last time, I don't do charity!"

"What about a free _drink_?"

Nino rolls his eyes as he sets the dishes onto Mao and Jun's table. "Only if you stop bothering my customers, you oaf!"

He pulls up an empty chair so that the man can sit at the end of the table, then leaves them to talk, ignoring the man's insistence that he'll earn that free drink.

"Thank you again for agreeing to speak with us, Aiba-san," Jun says once Nino is gone. He looks physically pained to not be eating the salad sitting in front of him.

Now that Nino is gone, Aiba's expression has grown very serious. "Not a problem," he says quietly. "Koji and Sumiko were very good friends of mine. I'll do anything I can to help you figure out what happened to them."

Mao pulls a folder out of the briefcase at her side. "We appreciate that very much," she says. She opens the folder and pulls out a printed copy of a police interview. "It says here that you work with large animals...?"

During the summer months, Aiba works at the local zoo, taking care of the animals and giving enthusiastic tours, and spends the rest of the year traveling to different parts of the world to help monitor and protect endangered species; his specialty, as it turns out, is large cats. According to the police interview, the local authorities already asked if he knew anything about what might have attacked the victims, but he had no idea.

"Nothing at all?" Jun prods. "Nothing you've seen in your travels?"

"Nothing," Aiba says.

Mao adds, "Are you sure? It could even be something you wouldn't find in a zoo."

Aiba looks confused. "Like what?"

"That's what we're trying to find out," Jun says. "We're just wondering if there's anything you've seen, even anything you've _heard_ , locally or in your travels abroad." He pauses, then continues slowly, as if he's considering each thought carefully before he voices it. "Perhaps even something you might have... brought with you."

After a moment of silence, Aiba says, "Are you implying that I have something to do with this?"

"We're just trying to rule out all possibilities," Mao reassures him.

Aiba seems to understand, but he remains distant and leaves soon after. "I'm sorry, detectives, but I have to go. Kirara-chan is waiting for me."

"Kirara-chan?" Jun asks, remembering the missing details from their files.

"Koji and Sumiko's cat," Aiba explains. "They didn't have any close family, so I'll be taking care of her now."

Unable to think of any other questions, they let him go. As soon as he leaves, Nino approaches their table with a pitcher of ice water to refill Jun's glass.

"I thought you said you were reporters," he says quietly.

Mao glances at Jun, then back up at Nino. "Did we say that? We meant investigators."

He sets the pitcher onto the table and turns to look her in the eye. "Look, I've known Aiba-chan my whole life. I know you two are intelligent and professional and probably very successful in your line of work, but I'm telling you, he's not a killer."

"He might not have meant it," Mao says. "It could have been something he brought back with him without even realizing it --"

"No way," Nino insists. "He might look like an airhead, but when it comes to things like that, he's the smartest person I know. And the only thing he cares about more than the animals he works with is the people around him. He would _never_ let something like that happen."

Without another word, he snatches the pitcher and walks away.

"I guess we'll have to find another theory to explore," Mao sighs.

When she turns back to Jun, he's already made it through half of her burger.

.

After another day of fruitless questioning, Mao and Jun find themselves back in their usual booth at the Kazu Cafe, frustrated and empty-handed.

Nino shows up with their usual order, surprising them both, and says with no hint of their previous conflict, "How's the investigation coming along?"

"I'm tired of thinking about monstrous cats and dogs," Mao laments, hunching over her food. "Tell me something nice, Nino! Do you have any other stories about Kazu?"

"Stories about Kazu? Hmm..." Nino squints towards the ceiling as if he's thinking very deeply, then says, "Well, it might interest you to know that lucky cats like Kazu are actually related to other, more malevolent feline spirits. They can all perform fantastical feats, including shapeshifting into and out of human form; it's just that some of them choose to gift humans with luck, while others --"

"Wait a second!" Jun cuts in. "I think... hold on..." He mimics Nino's thinking face, but on him it looks quite serious. "Didn't Aiba-san say he was going to take care of Kirara-chan?"

"Yes," Mao says slowly, as if she's waiting for him to figure it out.

"But didn't Kirara-chan belong to the _first_ victim?"

Now Mao is the one thinking, but she only holds the face for a brief moment before gasping, "You're right!" She reaches into her bag and quickly shuffles through its contents before pulling out a folder and flipping through until she reaches the page she's looking for. "Yes, it says here that the old man didn't have any visitors, just Kirara-chan -- his pet! But then how did the cat get all the way to the married couple?"

Jun reaches across the table to take the paper from her. "The old man and the family were neighbors. What if the family adopted Kirara-chan after he died?"

"And then when _they_ died, somehow the couple married couple adopted her next. The wife was a schoolteacher, wasn't she? Maybe one of the teenagers was her student, so she and her husband adopted the cat after that!"

"So the one concrete thing all the victims have in common is... Kirara-chan."

Mao frowns. "But what would turn an ordinary house cat into a monster?"

Jun reaches for his phone and makes a call, setting it to speaker and placing the phone in the middle of the table. It picks up after a few rings, and the voice on the other end says, "Yo!"

"Sho-kun," Jun says, "the password is 'soba.'"

"Ah, Matsumoto-kun! How can I help you?"

"I need you to look something up for me. What would cause an ordinary house cat to turn into a monster?"

"Roger!"

For a few moments they hear only typing, and then Sho's voice comes through the speaker again: "According to the bestiary, the most common stories about cats transforming into angry spirits involve the cat reaching a certain age or weight, or its tail reaching a certain length."

Mao tsks. "But we don't know any of those things about Kirara-chan."

"Sho-kun, is there anything else?"

"Hold on," Sho says. "I'm reading more. It says a cat may also transform if..."

"If it's mistreated," Nino says.

Mao and Jun jump in their seats. They'd both forgotten he was still standing there. "What?" Mao asks, holding a hand over her fluttering heart.

"If the cat is mistreated," Nino says again. "Cats are neutral by nature, don't you think? But if treated kindly, a cat will be loyal and bring good fortune. On the other hand, if treated poorly, it can become angry -- so angry that it seeks revenge not only on the person who harmed it, but on _all_ humans."

"Who is that?" Sho asks. "That's exactly what the bestiary says."

Mao and Jun stare at Nino, who stares back, his expression very serious, before he suddenly breaks into a smile. "Lucky guess!"

"Hold on," Mao says. "Didn't that neighbor say the first victim was a mean old drunk? And he was Kirara-chan's original owner. So if he mistreated it, and the poor thing became an angry spirit, like Nino said, and then it just kept getting passed from house to house..."

Jun ends the phone call, scrambles out of the booth, and shouts, "We need to save Aiba-san!" -- then scarfs down a bite of Mao's burger as she gathers their belongings.

.

.

.

It's a few days before Mao and Jun make their return to the Kazu Cafe, a little worse for wear but still in one piece. They slump into their usual booth and wait for Nino -- but the person who comes to their table is Ohno, the sleepy-faced host.

"Is Nino-san here today?" Mao asks, resting her chin in her hands and careful not to touch the claw marks across her right cheek.

Ohno pours their water and says, "No, he's out today. Every second Friday of the month is grooming day."

Mao tilts her head. "Grooming...?"

Jun says, "Do you mean, like... a spa?"

Ohno smiles. "Sure."

Mao and Jun frown at each other, but in the end they shrug and open their menus. While they wait for their food -- Jun finally orders the lunch special -- they chat about the case, how ridiculous it was that the cat demon was under their noses the entire time, how fortuitous it was that they got to Aiba's apartment just as the newly transformed Kirara-chan was about to pounce, and what sort of adventure Sho might have lined up for them after this.

When Ohno returns with their food, he's accompanied by a curious noise, almost like the bell over the door. Jun peers over the edge of the table and sees a small, nimble cat circling Ohno's ankles.

"Ah!" He leans back in his seat, instinctively drawing his legs up and away from the creature. "A cat!"

"It's cute!" Mao coos, reaching down to pet it. It leans in to the touch, purring noisily.

"It's _unsanitary_ ," Jun insists.

Ohno sets down the last plate and bends to scoop the cat into his arms. It has cream-colored fur with a black spot below its mouth, warm brown eyes, and a yellow collar with a little bell -- just like the cat in the window. "This is Kazu," Ohno says, taking the cat's left paw in his hand to wave it up and down. "Say hi, Kazu~"

The cat meows pitifully.

"He's supposed to stay in the office until it's time to go, but I guess he got anxious."

"Time to go?" Mao repeats, now scritching behind Kazu's ears.

"Yeah, today is his grooming day."

Jun narrows his eyes. "Didn't you say today was Nino's grooming day?"

Ohno blinks owlishly. "Did I?"

They stare at each other for a long moment before the bell over the front entrance rings and a familiar, lanky figure comes bounding towards them. "Hello again, detectives!"

"Aiba-san!" Mao greets him with a smile. "It's good to see you again! Are you here for Kazu?"

"Of course!" Aiba says. He takes the cat from Ohno's arms and laughs when it immediately starts licking his face.

"You're not tired of cats?" Jun asks. He looks a bit horrified.

Aiba grins and strokes Kazu's fur, from its ears right down to the tip of its tail. "I'll never get tired of this one," he says. "This one is special."

Mao and Jun watch Aiba and his furry companion head out, and after that they eat their lunch in silence, enjoying the fleeting but joyous feeling of not being on a case. They finish their meal and pay the check, and they tell Ohno to give Nino their regards when he returns from his "grooming."

Ohno waves goodbye as they head towards the exit, and over the friendly jingle of the overhead bell, they can just barely make out his sleepy voice calling after them.

"Good luck!"


End file.
